Sunday, October 2, 2011

The Red Sox Aren't Going to Have a Coach Next Year?

Terry Francona is gone. The only manager that the boys have ever known was fired yesterday. Or maybe he quit. I doubt we'll ever know...but we do know this. Something happened in that Clubhouse. The ultimate players' manager couldn't even keep this team together. Kevin Youkilis is a putz. Tim Wakefield is a putz. John Lackey (perfect name, really) is a miserable soul who sucked Lester and Beckett into his vacuum of crap. Daisuke and Buchholz are prima donnas. You can keep going, Carl Crawford is clearly miserable. Adrian Gonzalez is a jackass. I wanted to get rid of J.D. Drew months ago. Blah, blah blah. Two pitchers preceded to divorce their spouses within days of the last game of the season. And the Manager who could handle Manny Ramirez couldn't handle "The Dysfunctional Frat." And now we'll experience the DeMarlo Hale Regime. It's an opportunity, though.

All of the defenders will say "Don't blame the players!" It's Theo's fault. It's Terry Francona's fault. It's the management. I think all of the above have to take a share of the blame. The Clubhouse was clearly a mess. The Manager does not have the kind of mentality to take control of an out-of-control clubhouse and the General Manager and Management decided to sign Lackey, Crawford, Drew and Daisuke. But therein lies an opportunity.

If the team doesn't listen to the Coach, the team won't win. Teaching moment?

"The Red Sox won't have a coach next year?" My seven year old asks me.

"No. They'll have a Manager. It just won't be Tito."

"Will you be coach, Dad?" I shake my head, no.

"Dad, who's Tito?" My nine year asks me. But before I can answer him, the seven year old seems puzzled by my inability to manage the Red Sox.

"Why can't you be coach? You're a good coach, Dad!" Why, thank you G. Now go run a lap and do 10 push ups.

"Why did they fire him, Dad?" When I explain that it was his job to win baseball games and when a manager doesn't win games he loses his job, we then get into a conversation about how the team wasn't playing well enough to win.

"But they had the best team in the league!" C explains. But then just as he that he goes on. "Well John Lackey sticks. And so does Carl Crawford. Actually, only Jacoby Ellsbury played good this year. Is he the best player in the league? They all looked so mad and so sad" Losing focus...At least he didn't ask why I haven't lost my job since my team is 0-3.

"If the players stop listening to their coach, the team stops playing well and stops playing as a team. No one is happy and no one learns anything." OK, I am their coach most of the time. A little bit of psychology at work here.

"I get it Dad. You want me to listen to my coaches." My nine year old is starting to get too old to fall for these kind of tricks. I better dig a little deeper. "I always listen to my coaches Dad. I want to win too." Maybe, I don't?

The managerial choices are not great. Bobby Valentine, DeMarlo Hale, even Lou Pinella are out there looking for opportunities. I think we need Dick Williams or Earl Weaver myself. But so long as the boys see that teams that don't listen to their coaches play really poorly, that's more important to me.